Thursday, February 14, 2013

From The NJ Second Amendment Society

The New Jersey Law and Public Safety Committee held hearings yesterday on 23 gun control bills and the pushed all of the bills out of committee to the full house. As the release below from the NJ Second Amendment Society makes clear, it was the intention of the committee chairman that all of these bills would pass his committee.

On Wednesday, February 13, 2013, the New Jersey Law and Public Safety Committee heard testimony on 24 anti freedom bills. Approximately 500 liberty minded people showed up to testify against these bills, however only about 200 actually made it into the State House. The other 300 were forced to stay outside during the hearings. Around a half dozen people were on hand to testify in favor of the proposed legislation.

The day started with Committee Chair ASM Charles Mainor declaring all bills would move out of committee and into the general assembly. This bold statement set the tone for the day. As the hearing got under way, it was evident that the chairman and the majority of the committee had no plans on listening to any of those who testified against the bills. The first two pieces of legislation were then hurried through, and only 5 people allowed to testify on each. It was brought to the attention of ASM Mainor that more than 5 people wanted to testify on these bills, and explained that people were told to write “testify on all” instead of individually listing each bill when registering for the day. ASM Mainor then offered to allow testimony after the committee voted on the bills, further insulting the majority of the crowd. The reaction of the crowd forced Mainor to allow people to testify on all the bills, then voting would happen at the end of the day.

Several members of the NJ2AS, ANJRPC, various Tea Party organizations, and other liberty minded citizens came up to testify. People were told there was a two minute time limit, however anyone who went up to speak in favor of the rights restricting legislation were pretty much allowed to talk as long as they wanted. Anyone testifying against the bills were held strictly to the two minute time limit. Toward the end of the day, a Navy Veteran stood up to testify, and called out ASM Mainor for not listening to her being he was having a sidebar conversation when she tried to speak. Mainor quickly shouted back at her, “I am going to conduct my meeting my way, your time is up” drawing much anger from the crowd.

It was a long day, and all of the bills left committee and are headed to the NJ general assembly for vote sometime next week. There was one bill that stood to protect the privacy of NJ firearms owners, A3788 which exempts firearms records from NJ’s open public records law.

NJ2AS urges all freedom loving, liberty minded citizens who oppose this legislation to call, email, and fax New Jersey’s elected members of the Legislature and urge them to vote NO on these bills.

The committee chairman, Assemblyman Charles Mainor, is also Detective Mainor of the Jersey City Police Department. It would be interesting to know if he acts as much like thug when he's on the streets of Jersey City as he does in running his committee.